Gold Fever!

Follow in the footsteps of over 250000 emigrants who traveled to the gold fields and rich farmlands of California during the 1840s and 1850s-the greatest mass migration in American history. More than 1000 miles of trail ruts and traces can still be seen across 10 states on the California National Historic Trail.

At a time when restless Americans were already itching to go west, the discovery of gold in California in 1848 was like gasoline on a fire. Within a year of its discovery, emigrants using the California Trail were flooding into the Sierra Nevada Range by the thousands. - NPS